


Nightmares

by eatsingsleeplive125



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, Nightmares, Panic Attack, Post-Tartarus (Percy Jackson), Sad Percy Jackson, sick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 04:36:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13779840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eatsingsleeplive125/pseuds/eatsingsleeplive125
Summary: Post BoOThings have finally settled after the Giant War. Percy and Annabeth are ready to get back to a normal life. They're living in New Rome together and they're excited to start college. All of their friends are happy and healthy. Everything is finally okay.But no matter what, some things stay with you and not all scars are visible. Percy learns that the hard way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Might continue it, might not. For right now, this is it.

I had a good day. It shouldn’t have happened because I had a good day. 

Annabeth and I had gone swimming at the community center. We got lunch with Jason and Piper. We saw a movie. We had fun. We hadn’t had normal, human fun in such a long time. It was refreshing. 

That night, as Annabeth and I sat on our couch, her reading, me watching her read, everything was peaceful. I was thinking about how beautiful she was and how glad I was that we were finally able to settle down and chill out without any stupid ass prophecies getting in the way. New Rome was a good place to be. We would be starting college in the next couple of months. After finally defeating Gaea two months ago, things were finally starting to settle and everything was calm. I didn’t have to attend any more of the peace negotiations between the Head Counsellors of Camp Half Blood and the praetors and centurions of Camp Jupiter. All of the injured were in recovery, all the dead properly respected and buried. Leo was back and, after a lot of yelling and arguing and tears (mostly from Piper) at why he took so long to let everyone know he was alive, everything was slowly going back to normal. Which is why I never could have predicted that something like this would happen. 

“Wanna watch a movie, Annabeth?” I asked, laying my head on her lap. She chuckled. 

“Sure, Seaweed Brain. Go put one in; I’ll go make some popcorn and get some drinks,” she said, getting up and going to the kitchen. I put on Good Will Hunting, because it was Annabeth’s favorite, something about the psychology behind it all.

When she came back, we settled onto the couch with a blanket and our snacks and began the movie. 

I fell asleep so when the movie ended, Annabeth woke me up by smacking my upside the head. 

“Come on, Percy, let’s go to bed,” she insisted, grabbing my hands and pulling me up. I nodded, rubbing my eyes and heading to the bathroom to get ready for bed. She was there shortly in a fresh pair of pajama pants and one of my old hoodies. 

“You look good,” I told her as she was brushing her teeth, resting my hands on the sink on either side of her, blocking her in. She finished brushing her teeth and turned around to face me. 

“I’m wearing pajamas,” she deadpanned. 

“So? You still look good,” I smirked and moved in to kiss her. She immediately kissed back, smiling. She brought her hands up to my hair and tugged. I loved it when she did that. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her close. It was going well until she pulled away.  
“If this is your way to try and get me to sleep with you, it’s not gonna happen,” she smirked at me. 

I threw my head back and sighed loudly. 

“I don’t understand why we can’t just share a room. We’ve been dating for almost a year; we’ve known each other for six years. We live together for crying out loud! We don’t have to have sex, I just want to share a bed with you.” I gave her my best puppy dog pout and she cupped my face in her hands. 

“As hard as it is for me to resist that face, the answer is still no,” I groaned. She ignored me.

“My dad threw a fit when he found out we’d be sharing an apartment. I had to promise that we wouldn’t be sharing a room or anything and that it was only because we were going to be the only Greek demigods in New Rome and that we’d need each other to help figure things out. We’re still young, Percy,” she pulled my forehead down to meet her own, ”I don’t plan on going anywhere. There will be plenty of time for all of that later on in life,” she smiled and pecked me on the lips and walked out of the bathroom. 

“Good night, Seaweed Brain,” she called from her room. 

“Yeah, yeah. Goodnight,” I grumbled and finished getting ready for bed.


	2. Chapter 2

I opened my eyes only to be met with darkness. It wasn’t like the darkness of my room though. This darkness was moving, creeping, breathing. It was alive. The air burned and terrifying sounds surrounded me.

I was back in Tartarus.

No no no. We got out. We were safe. We were done with all of this quest shit. We were supposed to be normal humans now. Annabeth and I were supposed to--- Annabeth. She wasn’t with me. Where was she?

I felt panic set in as I pulled out Riptide in an effort to have some light. I was in a cave of some sort and Annabeth was nowhere to be seen.

“Annabeth!” I yelled, “Annabeth, where are you?”

“Percy?!” I heard her scream. She sounded like she was in pain.

“Percy! Where are you? Help me!” At that, I frantically began looking for an exit to the cave. It took me longer than I wanted, but I finally found my way out. When I exited, what I saw turned everything around me cold. My heart stopped.

Annabeth was tied to a stake, bruised, beaten and bleeding. She was about 100 feet away from me. The surrounding area was vast and painfully warm. Stalactites littered the ceiling, dripping down onto us.

“Percy, please! Please, help me!” her voice was raw and desperate.

“I’m coming. I’m coming, Annabeth! Just hold on!” I started running towards her, but she only seemed to be getting farther and farther away. Suddenly, appearing out of the shadows, a big, looming figure stood in front of me.

“You _left_ me Percy Jackson! You let me sacrifice myself for you and your stupid little girlfriend,” it was Bob and he was angry.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Bob. I wanted to help you! I did. Please let me help Annabeth. _Please_ ,” I begged. My heart was beating rapidly, my face was flushed. My breaths were coming too quickly and too short. I looked behind Bob to Annabeth, who was slowly losing consciousness.

“If you want her, you’ll have to get past me first!” he screamed, his big fist coming down to me too fast. I rolled away a just the right time. I ran between his legs and slashed as his calves with my sword. He yelled, loud and painfully and angrily. He turned around quickly and went to smash me with his fist again, when I ran and jabbed at his side. He was momentarily taken aback and I ran towards Annabeth.

I was so close, but before I could get to her, I was grabbed and lifted into the air by a giant fist, Riptide clattering out of my hand.

“Puny demigod! You think that I would ever let you save her? Never! You don’t deserve her. You don’t deserve to live. You’ve killed so many people!” It hurt because he was right. All the people that have died trying to help me in some way or another. Silena. Luke. Bianca. Zoë. Charles. Ethan. Michael. All of them had died because of me.

“That’s right Jackson. Death surrounds you. You bring it to everyone. Your precious girlfriend is going to die right in front of you because you were too weak to save her. You just have to stand by and watch!” My heart dropped. No. I wouldn’t let Annabeth die because of me. I grew desperate. I needed to get to her. I didn’t know what to do.

“Percy,” I heard her say weakly. I looked to her. “Percy, it’s okay. It’s not your fault. I’ll see you again, don’t worry,” she smiled at me. My heart wrenched. I thrashed in Bob’s fist. I had to get to her. I could save her. I needed to save her. I _have_ to save her.

“Annabeth, no! No! Don’t give up. I’ll save you! I promise. Let me go! _Let me go_!” I pounded my fists against Bob’s hold. I kicked, I bit, I screamed. I tried to summon any amount of water that might be around, but there was not enough.

Bob laughed loudly; maniacally, “You idiotic child! There is nothing you can do now! She will die and then you will be alone. You will never get out of here. You will forever be trap--” he was cut short, his voice getting caught. He sputtered and cringed like something was wrong with him. He sounded like he was choking.

“Wh- what are you doing Percy Jackson? What are you doing to me?” he dropped me and I crashed into the ground, landing painfully on my ankle. I screamed and reached down to grab my ankle, when Bob followed my movements, copying me exactly.

“Stop! Stop! What are you doing to me?” I moved my hand and he did the same. Why was he copying my movements?

“Percy, stop! This is not right,” I heard Annabeth gasp out. What’s not right?

“Release your hold on me, Jackson!” Bob cried out.

My brain went into overdrive. What were they talking about? What’s not right? What does Bob mean? My heart stopped. It was then that I realized what I was doing. The body is composed mostly of water isn’t it?

Something washed over me, something strong and powerful. Something I had not felt since I learned I could control poison the last time Annabeth and I were down here. I fed off of the power. It consumed me and I knew what I had to do.

I summoned the power and made Bob do my bidding. I made him punch himself in the face. I made him go untie Annabeth and bring her to me, where she collapsed at my feet. Then I made him break off a stalactite from the roof. I brought it up to his chest.

“Percy,” Annabeth wheezed, “Percy. Don’t. Please. You’re scaring me,” she grabbed my arm. I looked down at her and then back at Bob. He was whimpering, terror shining in his eyes, begging me not to do this. It was then that I felt the hold this power had on me. How dark it felt. How terrifying. I gasped and released my hold on Bob. I fell to my knees as all my energy left my body.

“Go. Get out of here. _Now_. GO!” I yelled and Bob ran away. I felt Annabeth grip my hand. I looked down at her. She was bleeding from a large wound on her side. She was losing too much blood.

“Annabeth! Hold on! I’ll help you. We’ll figure this out. We can—“ there was nothing to do though. I had no supplies. Nothing to save her with.

She squeezed my hand weakly, “Seaweed Brain, it’s okay. It’s fine. Stop. It’s okay.” She was crying. Hell, I was too. I was losing her and there was nothing I could do—

“Wait, I can stop the bleeding. I can control—“

“No! Percy, please don’t. No one should have that much power,” she moved my hand away from her side. “Promise me, you’ll never do that again. Promise me now,” her eyes were wide and glassy. Stormy and dark, lacking in the usual light they have.

“I promise,” I sobbed.

Annabeth smiled up at me weakly, “I love you, Seaweed Brain.”

“I love you,” I whispered, tears rolling down my face as a gripped her hand tightly, hoping beyond reason that I could save her.

But it was too late. Her eyes slipped shut. Her breathing stopped. She was gone.

And I was alone.

I cried myself raw. I lost the one person that meant the most to me. The one person I loved beyond a shadow of a doubt. I wasn’t sure how I was going to function without her. I screamed and I cursed, the pain I felt tearing holes through my body, ripping apart my soul piece by piece.

That’s when the monsters came. They must have heard me crying. They surrounded me. I was defenseless and broken. I know she would have wanted me to fight back, to make it out of here alive and be with my family, with the others at Camp Half Blood. But she was the only reason I made it out of here before. I don’t even remember how we got back here; how we came to be in this position.

The monsters were closing in. They were snarling, growling and laughing with a sick sense of joy.

“Ah, the noble Perseus Jackson. Finally, you will die.”

And then they attacked.


	3. Chapter 3

I woke up when my body slammed onto the ground.

I’m not sure if you could say I was awake actually. I couldn’t tell where I was or why it was so dark and I couldn’t figure out why it was so damn hard to breathe. My chest was tight and a stabbing pain hit me every time I tried to take in a breath. Was I dying? I immediately reached for Riptide only to realize I didn’t have it with me. I crawled backwards trying to escape the darkness until I hit a wall. What was happening?

Then I remembered: Tartarus. Bob. The monsters. Annabeth. My heart stopped. All I could think was “Oh gods was she really dead? Where was she? Where am I?”

My head hurt and my stomach churned and I _couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t I breathe?_

I was suddenly overtaken by vertigo and as the world spun, I barely had time to turn my head to the side before I was throwing up all over the place.

That’s when Annabeth came to my room. She said she was up reading when she heard a thud come from my room. She said laughed it off, thinking I just fell out of bed (she wasn’t wrong) until she heard me scream. That surprised me because I don’t remember screaming, but apparently I didn’t stop.

She thought I was being attacked. I vaguely remember seeing a figure open my door, the light from the hallway making my head explode in pain. I threw up again. I heard something rushing towards me, a knife in hand. I do remember screaming then and I back further into the wall.

I heard the knife clatter to the ground and all of a sudden someone was in front of my face.

“Percy,” I heard the desperation in the voice. I realized it wasn’t an enemy then. But who was it?

“Percy, it’s me! It’s Annabeth! You’re okay, please. You’re okay!”

Annabeth? Oh.

Once I registered that it was her, I tried to gather myself.

Annabeth was here. So she wasn’t dead. That was good. The tightness in my chest loosened slightly. But I still didn’t know where we were or why it was so dark.

“That’s it, Perce. Breathe. Good. You’re fine,” she soothed and it brought some sense of calm into my world.

“We’re safe. It’s okay. We’re safe. We aren’t there anymore,” she pulled me into her and stroked my hair.

There? Where was “there?”

Oh.

_Oh._

That’s when everything stopped. I remembered where we were. I remembered how we got out. I remembered reuniting with the rest of the seven and Nico.

But I also remembered everything else.

All the pain. All the people I’ve lost. The way my throat burned from drinking the fire water. Leaving Bob.

It was too much. I clutched Annabeth’s shirt in my hands, pulled myself impossibly closer to her and I cried.

I cried for everything. For Silena. For Ethan. For Bianca. For Luke. For Zoë and Charles and Michael. For everything that the gods of Olympus have put me through in my short 18 years on this planet.

“It’s okay, Percy. You’re okay. We’re okay,” Annabeth whispered as she carded her hands through my hair.

Eventually I calmed down and Annabeth began asking questions. We remained in the same position though. I kept my head in her chest and my arms tightly around her waist as she held me against her and continued playing with my hair. My head was pounding and my stomach was still turning uncomfortably.

“What happened?”

“Nightmare. We were back in Tartarus. You died.”

“Oh, Percy. I’m sorry.”

I shrugged.

“You have a fever.”

I nodded. I realized after I calmed down that the headache and the stomach ache weren’t just due to the nightmare and the panic attack.

“Could’ve cause the nightmare.”

I nodded.

“Is there anything else?”

I paused. Should I tell her? It was probably going to be a reoccurring thing now. Like the fear of drowning. I decided it was best to tell her now.

“Bob was there,” she froze, but then nodded, encouraging me to keep going.

“He kidnapped you. He was the reason you died— the reason I couldn’t save you. He was angry at us for letting him sacrifice himself.”

“Percy that’s not your fa—“ she started, but I kept going.

“I did something. I don’t know if I can do it in real life. I would be lying if I said I had wondered before,” I paused. I wasn’t sure if I could say it out loud. I didn’t realize I was shaking again until she squeezed me.

“Shhh. It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me,” she whispered.

“No I— I do. I need to,” I said as I pulled away so I could look at her. Her hair was in a ponytail and she was wearing the fish themed pajama pants I got her for Christmas a few years ago as well as one of her old Camp Half Blood t shirts. She looked tired. I hadn’t thought about how everything was affecting her; how she was handling everything. She’s always been stronger than me, emotionally anyway. She’s better at compartmentalizing. But I guess there are some things you just can’t keep yourself from thinking about. I looked away.

“I was controlling him. I was,” I paused and let out a shaky breath before I continued, “I was using the water in his body. To control him…it was the last thing you saw me so before you died...” I brought my eyes up to her’s and saw the confusion that slowly turned into realization that then turned into terror.

The tightness in my chest started seeping through again. My headache intensified. I couldn’t have her scared of me. I needed her.

I didn’t feel myself pulling away until she grabbed my hands.

“Percy, no. It’s okay. I’m sorry. It just took me a minute to understand. It’s fine. You’re fine. We’re fine. I’m not going anywhere,” she said, pulling me into her again. I relaxed some.

“I’ve thought about it before. I’ve wondered if it was possible. But I’ve never tried. I don’t want to be able to do that,” I said really fast, trying to get her to understand that I didn’t want to have that much power. That the thought of it was disgusting. That I could never do that.

“No. No of course not. You would never, Seaweed Brain. I know that. It’s okay, it’s fine. Please calm down,” she shushed me. I just nodded.

We sat there for a little while longer. When I started to fall asleep though, I figured it was time to go back to bed.

“Annabeth?”

“Hm?”

“I don’t feel good.”

“I know. You have a fever remember?”

“Can I get in bed?”

She paused a moment.

“Yes of course. Let’s go.” She stood up and helped me up. When I stood, my vision temporarily blacked and I swayed on my feet.

“Whoa. Must be some fever, Percy. I’ll get some meds and a thermometer,” she said as she steadied me.

We walked towards my bed and I slid in and pulled the covers over myself.

“I’ll be right back,” Annabeth said as she leaned down and kissed me forehead. I nodded and closed my eyes.

I must’ve fallen asleep because when I woke up, there were fever meds, a glass of water and a thermometer on my bedside table and Annabeth was in the corner cleaning up my vomit from earlier.

“You don’t have to do that, Annabeth,” I said and tried to sit up but I immediately collapsed back with whimper as my headache was exacerbated to the point of blurring my vision.

“It’s fine, Seaweed Brain. You don’t always need to be a hero,” she smirked at me and came over to the bed. She helped me sit up and take the meds and took my temperature.

“101.7. Not good but not dangerous. The meds should help.”

I nodded. Annabeth sat at the edge of my bed beside me. My stomach had calmed down by then and my headache had lessened. I grabbed her hand and she squeezed mine. It was quiet for a while. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking about. She was looking at the ground and running her thumb over my hand.

“Percy,” the silence was broken.

“Hm?”

“We’ll be okay. You know that right?” The question took me by surprise. Of course I knew that. We’ve been through so much and here we are. I could see where she was coming from though. We’d never been through something so extreme. Tartarus was a whole new level of utter shit that the gods put us through. Would we be okay? Maybe not right away. Maybe it would take longer than usual to get over this quest. But as long as we were together, I knew we’d be okay. Eventually.

I sighed.

“Yeah. I know that.”

She nodded. She still had this look like she wanted to say something though. I waited. After a long while, she spoke again.

“You know that I could never be afraid of you, right?” I froze.

“What if I can do that though? Control people that way?” I whispered.

“Percy, even if you can, I don’t think you ever would. You’re too good. You care too much. It wouldn’t be you,” she turned to me. Her eyes were earnest. She believed what she was saying. If Annabeth could hold that much faith in me, I trusted her. I knew she was right. I nodded.

“It was awful.”

“I know.”

“Annabeth?” She looked at me again.

“Will you stay in here tonight?” She looked at me a moment. I thought she was going to say no. Then she pulled her legs onto bed and laid down on my chest. I wrapped my arm around her.

“It’ll be okay, Percy,” she whispered.  
“I know,” I said back. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Seaweed Brain.”

With that, she settled into my bed. I waited until her breathing evened out and I knew she was asleep before I even closed my eyes.

I knew there would be many more nights like this to come. I also knew that no matter what, as long as Annabeth was here and we were together, we would be okay.


End file.
